


Godspeed

by PunkHazard



Category: Eyeshield 21, Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 01:59:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2173788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkHazard/pseuds/PunkHazard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the co-pilot you start with isn't the one you end up with. Unsui makes a lot of hard choices and Agon doesn't fucking like any of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Godspeed

Few things annoy Agon more than having someone inside his head. Moreover, he hates _being inside someone else's_. 

Drifting necessitates synchronized motor impulses -- shared thought and memory is only a consequence, but why does everyone else have to be so fucking _stupid_? 

Compensating for lower speed, the limits of a human reaction time, Agon's been doing that all his life. It's the suckers he's trained with, who can't put their thoughts on hold for _one fucking minute_ that he can't take. (Who fucking _cares_ if some piece of trash is craving a Big Mac? How does McDonalds still exist after FamMart's been wiped off the face of the earth? Why is shit so goddamn unfair?) 

He and Unsui haven't been close for years, so when the PPDC sticks them in a jaeger together after graduation, half the memories are unfamiliar (he still remembers when nothing would have surprised him, when they spent most of their waking hours together and the rest in different classes learning the same material), and the other half consists of flashes of himself, his back, his trophies, and if Unsui's embarrassed by the thought of having Agon in every corner of his mind and knowing it, he doesn't say. 

They're not supposed to chase rabbits, but Unsui's a sneaky bastard ("Shishihakuto,") and he dives into Agon's memories during moments of downtime, hunts down every single one of his favorites and drags them to the forefront of their minds like warm fuzzies are going to make him any more likely to keep his side of the room clean. 

Living together, memories of each other, of dad, of mom are clearer in Agon's head and he knows now that Unsui still misses her sometimes and if his memories fill in the gaps for his twin, Agon doesn't particularly mind having his brother know what he's thinking. 

Except what he's usually thinking is, _Don't get in my way_. 

When they're active, Unsui's a veteran at keeping an even keel, at suppressing his thoughts, sending Agon nothing but a stream of sensory information, just the way he likes it. Kaiju at eighty degrees; incoming acid spray from the left; fuel cells at half; damage to left shin, 60 percent functionality; _and while we're waiting for this punch to follow through, what do you think about nabe for dinner?_

Agon handles movement, reacting with synaptic speed to each new threat while Unsui processes, formulates strategy, reports on progress, does what Agon does without needing to think about where to place his body. They both get the same thrill feeling their hits connect, headshots from the pulse launcher, when a kaiju falls over so hard it shakes the ground, breaks windows. 

(He's not sure whose brain it comes from but the image of GI ripping a kaiju head off recurs frequently enough that Agon doesn't think it really matters at this point, but Unsui's the one who idly thinks about driving the sting blade into an armored belly and pulling out handfuls of wet, slimy viscera. 

Agon's pretty sure it's Unsui's twisted form of revenge for that building collapsing on mom and splattering him when Kanagawa got hit because he didn't know to get out of the way in time. Unsui was a dumb kid.) 

* * *

They make two category II kills before their first class III kaiju, an enormous monster with an armored snout, long arms and legs with claws the size of small houses and a serpentine body winding through the rain. Callsign Naga. GI drops into the harbor before it touches down on land, fires off a shot from the pulse launcher and they manage to lure the creature to a clear space, water still churning around the Jaeger's shins, before engaging with the sting blade. 

"Look at this ugly piece of trash," Agon laughs into the feed, "wonder what it'd look like without a head." 

Unsui provides him a vivid image, then the layout of the harbor but replies, "No poison sac, armored joints. Osaka science base at our six, so watch where we throw it." 

"Yeah, yeah. How're you gonna feel about being a paranoid egghead after we take down a category III, Unko?" 

Unsui reacts with Agon, arm rising to deflect a blow to the head, and fires a pulse into its face, bringing the other arm forward to glance the point of their blade off the scales on Naga's belly. "Ask again when we're done here." 

They win, but not before the kaiju's tail whips around, sends them reeling, knocks Godspeed Impulse over and breaks off one of the prongs on GI's sting blade. Agon fights through a torn rotator cuff and Unsui a concussion (that's what he gets for shaving his head, no cushion for impact through his helmet), and they're both out of action for nearly a month before Unsui hands in his transfer request. 

Agon comes to the conclusion that his twin does _stupid shit_ when he's not hooked up to a genius brain. 

"What the _fuck_ , Unko?" 

"I slowed you down," Unsui says, and stops in the hall on his way from the training center, turns around and holds his gaze. He'd seen the tail whistling through the air, toward them, and a massive claw swinging in from their right, out of Agon's range of vision but that shouldn't have mattered, if he'd been able to move fast enough. 

" _Everyone_ slows me down." 

"Yeah." 

Agon knows the look of Unsui pulling away, but he'd never in a million fucking years say out loud that he doesn't even know who'd be able to step in, if Unsui's decided to move on. "Did that concussion give you brain damage, aah?" 

"I'll be piloting Devil Commando with Hiruma Yoichi, once we're approved to go back into the field. Turns out we're compatible, and DC needs a replacement." 

"That slimy trash?" 

Unsui gives him a look, half exasperated, that he can practically hear after having spent so many hours in the cockpit with their minds connected. 

"He and I are on the same level, for what it's worth. You'll like your new co-pilot." 

( _I'm your brother; trust me._ ) 

"Who is it?" 

"We're still clearing paperwork with the Marshal." 

Agon drapes himself over Unsui's back, then pinches his cheek and stretches it to the side. "Is it that hot piece of ass wasting her time on Habashira?" 

"Tsuyumine Megu?" 

"Yeah, her." 

Unsui ducks away from his twin, stuffs his hands into his pockets and shakes his head as he walks away. "Keep on dreaming, Agon." 

* * *

Hiruma asks as he pulls on his helmet for their first training simulation, "Any surprises, fucking monk?" 

"Probably nothing you haven't seen before. You?" 

Japan was always a hotbed of kaiju activity-- Hiruma hasn't lost any family (what little of it he has), but it's common enough for just about everyone he knows. Besides, they've both done their homework. Drifting doesn't usually require a complete, forced connection, but they'd agreed that it would be the quickest way for two rangers with trust issues to get over them, and humanity doesn't have the luxury of waiting for them to forge any deep, emotional bond. "What's the point of asking? We're about to find out." 

_Initiating neural handshake._

"No secrets," Hiruma says, with great difficulty. "I'll go first." 

"Yeah." 

The hard part's always the first time, with someone you don't know, didn't grow up with, don't share memories with-- or so Unsui's been told. Drift compatilibility has everything to do with trust, and neither of them do so easily. 

He's tossed into a mess of oddly well-organized memories, as far as memories can be organized. Hiruma's offering them up to him, sorting through significant moments, giving him controlled, careful segments. Clean sequences, tinged but not saturated with emotion. 

Childhood for Hiruma was _cold_ , if there's a word for it. Distant parents, long hours alone, plowing through books and newspapers, taking apart clocks, computers, cellphones, radios, anything he could get his hands on and putting them back together, not always successfully. He broke into HQ in elementary school, twice, and managed to explore the compound for hours before he'd been caught-- and summarily adopted by the lower-ranked soldiers with time on their hands. 

He remembers those years fondly, mostly time spent with the engineering team, monitoring kaiju attacks and battles. Musashi and Kurita come later, Anezaki hounding him from LOCCENT, and it's only then that the memories become warm and sweet, a slow burn swelling into a conflagration when the hospital Musashi's dad had been staying at gets trampled by a category III, where he'd been visiting that day. 

Hiruma'd never been the kind of ranger who resorts to denial, but he'd made an exception for the long hours after news had flooded in, and that had been two months ago and he hasn't been on the field since. 

Unsui feels it like a punch to the gut. He hears every affectionate, unspoken thought for two people who were, in the grand scheme of things, fairly unremarkable except for the way they had so easily inserted themselves into Hiruma's life and he realizes belatedly that there's nothing in Hiruma's memories remotely like what's in his and he knows he's too late but he says into the comm, "Stop the simulation." 

(Unsui's life is, in many ways, Hiruma's in reverse. Fuzzy memories of his mother dominating early childhood, happy years of never having to feel alone-- dad was young and clumsy but he was fiercely proud of his sons all the same and mom was kind and loving and warm and they were _happy_ , despite everything.) 

"Stop the simulation. Please." 

"Too late," Hiruma says, voice cracking, and Unsui thinks he might be processing in reverse, out of sequence, he'd spent so much time trying to push the soft days out of his mind, "let it run." 

(It's not an especially clear memory, except for the numbness that dominated it and the noise, the debris as their house collapsed under the weight of a claw, a splash of heat across his chest and arms and face and Unsui wonders if he'd really been holding onto Mom's body for so long or if he'd just stretched the time out, in his mind. Agon had been the one to pull him away, just before the rest of the house came down, dragging him down the alley toward the closest bunker as the sticky blood dried on him, two sets of bare feet pattering over the ground. 

They found dad, who'd asked about mom and he didn't blame them, really, except he'd seen Unsui covered in her blood and he'd said something Unsui doesn't remember but he knows it was then that he'd stopped talking to dad and dad stopped reaching for him. He said he didn't blame Unsui, except he probably sort of did, in hindsight. 

Unsui hadn't cried until days afterward, curled up in a closet somewhere so Agon wouldn't find him and make fun of him and he doesn't remember why he'd been afraid of that, because Agon always called him a crybaby but he'd never laughed at him for it. It'd taken years for the nightmares to stop and he'd gotten used to stumbling to the trash can in the middle of the night, but drifting brings the memories close to the surface, though he hadn't intended to let Hiruma see this one first, and Hiruma's--) 

"Stop the fucking simulation." 

It stops, disconnects their minds while arm and leg restraints hiss open and Hiruma tears his helmet off as he makes a beeline for the closest garbage receptacle. 

"Sorry," Unsui says, and presses a bottle into Hiruma's hand when he finishes emptying his breakfast into the bin, "I was ten. Forgot how it might... be for someone else." 

Hiruma snorts, swishes a mouthful of water in his mouth and spits it into the trash can before taking a real swig, shutting his eyes and lowering his head between his knees. He stays like that for nearly a minute before he mutters, "Forget about it. You want a drink as bad as I do?" 

Unsui has the same haunted, raw expression Hiruma remembers seeing in the mirror after Musashi got himself killed, and it wasn't that really, but Kurita in the weeks after that had hit Hiruma the hardest. Musashi knew the risks. 

"Yeah, I could use one." 

"Or twenty. Fuck." 

Unsui's hand settles on Hiruma's shoulder. "I've only ever drifted with Agon before. I should've warned you." 

"When I said forget about it, I meant quit fucking apologizing." Hiruma waves him off, stands up and leads the way back to the locker room. "Better get that over with now than in front of a kaiju." 

("Unsui-kun," Kurita says, when they cross paths in the mess hall a week later, "you're Hiruma's new partner, right? I just wanted to thank you." 

"For what?" 

"For being his partner.") 

* * *

The first time Agon's mind links up with Shin's, he doesn't even notice. 

It's the isolation, that makes it feel like home. An undercurrent of solitary intent, coiled muscle waiting on a signal to spring, and Agon doesn't particularly enjoy the strategizing, but it comes easy and Shin can move at his pace, doesn't get worn out from the resistance of the harness as they move. They don't talk. (They don't have to.) 

One of the perks of not having a whole lot of emotions anyway, on both their parts, is how easy it is to max that connection out, and how easily they both suppress memories, barely even registering what few blips squeak through as a distraction. They rely on preternatural speed and a fundamental understanding of how things _work_ to pick up the slack, and they still smash five new records on their first category II. 

(Unsui's always exhausted by the time they're done, drenched in sweat and breathing hard and he lags only a few hours into each simulated run, and Agon tries to finish fast-- the less he has to _feel_ muscles wearing down, lactic acid burning in the fibers, arms and legs straining under the pressure, the better. He'd never known what running out of stamina felt like, before, and he would've been fine never finding out. 

Shin is tireless. He fucking loves it. 

Shin also smashes his hand through the control panel after their first drift, and Agon thinks that's fucking _hilarious_ but the next time his co-pilot reaches for a button, he gets his hand slapped unceremoniously away. Besides, Agon is good enough and fast enough to handle the extraneous shit for both of them.) 

"I told you," Unsui says later, smiling mildly. 

He likes the new arrangement almost as much as Agon does, which _pisses Agon the fuck off_ , because Unsui's not supposed to like being partnered up with anyone but his twin. But he's more relaxed now, and he spends less time sleeping off every battle or training sim, so that leaves more time for being a huge nag. A huge nag who cooks and has time to listen to him complain about shit, so Agon takes the trade-off with grace (for a given value of grace). 

"Aah, shut up." 

* * *

Moving day comes and goes without a whole lot of fanfare. Agon spends most of it sulking while Unsui packs his clothes (mostly variations on their uniform) and shifts them down the hall to Hiruma's room, with some help from Shin, who's moving his belongings into Agon's room. 

Unsui wonders if the guy who came up with the idea of rooming co-pilots together actually thinks that spending more time with someone is supposed to forge a deeper emotional bond, and if he has siblings. He assumes no, because anyone with siblings would have been able to tell him that the quickest way to make two people hate each other is to put them in the same room. 

Cleaning up after Agon is one thing; Hiruma's room is a _mess_ , and shows every sign of being lived in by a brilliant eccentric. Not that Unsui thinks he's going to have a problem with Hiruma-- the line separating their individual 'sides' could be drawn without a ruler, it's defined so well. He's pretty sure Shin and Agon, however, are going to have problems. 

It takes a few weeks for Unsui to acclimate himself to Hiruma, learning where the other ranger keeps his belongings, how he keeps his books arranged, sim drifts reinforcing the knowledge so even the chaos on Hiruma's side of the room begins to make sense to him. Consequently, his own side loses some of its meticulous tidiness: books scattered over his desk instead of stacked and arranged, clothes thrown over the backs of chairs instead of folded. 

Hiruma starts arranging his guns by date and location of manufacture, his books by title, and once in a while he even bothers throwing his clothes into the hamper instead of right on the floor. Their sides of the room start blending together, which neither of them actually mind. 

Shin cleans up after Agon-- sort of. He'll put his co-pilot's belongings in order when it bleeds into his side, but never the way Agon prefers it. Agon starts picking up after himself, just to keep Shin from putting his stash of beer into the closet instead of under the bed where he likes it, or his shades on the shelf instead of on the table by his bed. (It's effective, at least, and even Agon isn't annoyed enough to wreak havoc on his roommate.) 

* * *

"Five hours," Unsui says, and Hiruma can feel the wave of concern radiating through the mech. They're stationary-- DC isn't built for maneuverability and GI's been exchanging blows with a class IV since they first engaged, preventing damage to the shore. They've managed to land a few shots, when jaeger and kaiju separated long enough to take aim, but any true backup for Godspeed Impulse is impossible. 

" _Focus,_ " Hiruma snarls, deluging his co-pilot with atmospheric and wind conditions, currents, vectors and weak points-- and charges up the pulse launcher for another round. 

It's another hour before they wear the kaiju, Alexander, down enough for Agon and Shin to cave its skull in. As soon as it collapses into the ocean, GI's limbs sag, the Jaeger collapses to its knees and Unsui comes closer to panicking than he ever has. They move in first-- it'll be a while before PPDC choppers arrive for cleanup, and Hiruma extends his side of Devil Commando's hand to GI's conn-pod. They clear the cockpit, then clamber across it to access the other Jaeger's. 

"Agon weighs less," Unsui says, voice clipped as he hits the release latches on both pilots' harnesses, "I'll handle Shin." 

Hiruma catches Agon as the rig releases him, slings one arm over his shoulder and walks him over to the wall of the conn-pod while Unsui does the same with Shin. Agon is barely breathing when Hiruma removes his helmet, sweat still dripping from his chin while Unsui grabs two bottles of water from a storage compartment and switches places with his co-pilot. 

Hiruma asks, prodding Agon with a toe as he moves toward Shin, "The fuck is wrong with him?" 

Unsui brushes a lock of hair out of his brother's face and frowns, waiting for him to start taking deep, fast breaths before he hands over the water. "I don't think Agon's ever actually been worn out before." 

"He hasn't," Shin says, eyelids drooping even while Hiruma uncaps his bottle and passes it to him. "But he didn't complain." 

"That's not like him." 

The back of Agon's head thumps against the hull of the conn-pod and he snarls, "I'm right here, you fucking assholes." 

Hiruma cackles. 

"The choppers should be here soon," Unsui says, sitting next to Agon. Hiruma settles down next to Shin and stretches his legs, bony knees visible even through the armor of his drivesuit. "Good fight," Unsui tells them belatedly, drawing his knees up to his chest as Agon slumps into his side, letting his twin's shoulder prop him up so he can fall asleep with his chin braced on the chest piece of his battle armor. 

Shin nods, folds his elbows over his knees and drops his forehead onto his arms while Hiruma fiddles with a latch on his drivesuit. 

"Hey, fucking monk." 

"Yeah." 

Agon's head shifts, minutely, when Hiruma asks (even though he already knows), "You regret this?" 

And Unsui replies, "No," because as much as he would've felt better in the cockpit monitoring his brother's condition, they all know the outcome of the fight if he'd been in the rig instead of Shin. 

"Huh," Hiruma says, as if he'd heard that thought. He probably did; hangovers from the neural handshake take a while to fade. "So this is why we're fucking drift compatible." 

**Author's Note:**

> can't believe i never posted this :')


End file.
